Hunter Biden is the poster boy for crack cocaine. The bathtub shots of him smoking rock are perfect. Now, all cleaned up in tailored suits, shaven, healthy-looking, it’s hard to believe it’s the same gun-buying, hooker-loving, crack-smoking Hunter. He certainly looks different, but is he? I have no idea. Like his parents, I hope so. But you never know what’s churning inside the addict. I know because, like Hunter, I am an addict. 

Hunter and I are lucky to be alive. Seventy-four thousand plus overdose deaths from just Fentanyl in 2022. Seventy percent were male. Many were barely out of their teens. Some passed the first time they tried it. This number doesn’t include alcohol and other drugs. 

I’m closing in on 40 years of recovery, and people ask me if I still need help —  more than ever. I have so much more to lose. I didn’t have a wife and kids when I got sober. Sobriety gave me all that. When it comes to addiction, you are never safe or free. Like a rattler, it’s lurking, ready to strike and strike hard. It’s said that when you get sober, the only thing you must change is everything. I learned the disease of addiction is centered in the brain. It’s a disease that tells the person they don’t have a disease. It’s a disease that tells me it was everyone’s fault but my own. I caught some bad luck; if the cops didn’t see my busted taillight, I wouldn’t be in a jail cell sitting on a toilet with five others watching me.  

Thirty-five or so years ago, I told a guy who pulled into what I perceived as my parking space I was going to slit his tires and break his car windows if he did not pull out. I was sober for almost five years at that time. He did not pull out, and I did not slit his tires. Addicts are angry. Some even call it slowbriety. Sobriety is a slow process; it can take five years to get the cobwebs out of your brain. 

“Leave me alone” is the mantra of almost everyone with an addiction. So, for me to stay sober, I must change the way I think and react to life. I must become a part of life. Addicts must learn to pause when agitated.

“Leave me alone” is the mantra of almost everyone with an addiction. So, for me to stay sober, I must change the way I think and react to life. I must become a part of life. Addicts must learn to pause when agitated.

The most common denominator of most addicted people is a broken heart. Once the heart has been broken, the person is very fragile — many times for life. My wife or kids can say something that might hurt, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not, but I can become Humpty Dumpty and crack very quickly. Then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put me back together again. And if I don’t get put back together and rewire the short in my brain, I could become impossible to live with. That is a broken heart.

Hunter and I ordinarily would never mix. Politically, we’re opposed. But once I think I’m better than Hunter or some inner-city rockhead, that’s the beginning of the slide back. I was lucky I got off the elevator before it crashed into the basement and I needed to be pulled out.

So, how does one get sober and stay sober? There are many ways. Mine happens to be by going to meetings and talking to other alcoholics every day and having gratitude for the gift of sobriety. Without gratitude, every step has a fork in the road. A guide to help me navigate the rocky waters of life has saved me many times. For some, it’s a sponsor, a rabbi, a priest, or a good friend. It’s also the belief that there is a God, and He wants me to be sober so I can be of service. Must everyone who gets sober believe in God? No. But I think it helps. If I were Hunter, could I have stayed sober with all the pressure he is under? I don’t know. But if he called and asked me or any of my sober buddies for help, no matter where we stand politically, we would be there in the blink of an eye because helping others is how you get to keep your sobriety.

Mark Schiff is a comedian, actor and writer, and hosts, along with Danny Lobell, the ‘We Think It’s Funny’ podcast. His new book is “Why Not? Lessons on Comedy, Courage and Chutzpah.”

Israel’s greatest miracle might not be its survival against all odds, or the brilliance of its entrepreneurial start-up culture. In my mind it is the unusually high percentage of its population who say that they are very happy with their lives. No doubt the current nightmare will negatively impact their reported sense of contentment, but there is every reason to believe that the numbers will eventually rebound.

As a professor of economics, I am embarrassed to admit that members of my discipline typically dismiss the use of happiness as a measure of well-being. For them, the best indicator of a nation’s success is its wealth, not how its citizens feel about themselves.

That changed at least a bit when a path-breaking economist, USC’s Richard Easterlin, published the first in a long series of seminal articles around the theme “Does Money Buy Happiness?” One of Easterlin’s greatest contributions was the identification of what came to be known as the “Easterlin Paradox” — that while richer people in a particular country report that they are happier than their less affluent counterparts, residents of nations that have experienced even the most rapid increases in material well-being don’t seem happier on average than they did before. Why is that? According to Easterlin, individuals compare their incomes to others, especially to their parents when they were being raised, and to their friends and neighbors today. Their absolute income matters less than their relative position. In the immortal words of cultural critic H.L. Mencken, “A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife’s sister’s husband.” If a rising tide of prosperity lifts all boats together, a person’s relative status may remain unchanged, and hence that person might feel no better off than earlier.  

China provides a vivid example of this phenomenon. Beginning in the early 1990s, and lasting a quarter century, China experienced what was arguably the fastest economic growth ever recorded. However, the percentage of people who said that they were very happy failed to rise.  

So if economic growth isn’t a path to happiness, what is? Let’s look at the places that lead the world based on happiness surveys. The most recent one (which averaged over the years 2021 to 2023) ranked Finland first, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Israel. The U.S. was 23rd.

Some sociologists point to the homogeneity of the population within the highest ranked countries as a key explanation for their elevated level of overall satisfaction.  While diversity can be a source of tremendous vitality, it often comes at the price of community cohesion.  

But how do you explain Israel coming in fifth? While 73% of its residents are Jewish, Israeli Jews are anything but homogeneous. They are Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, and for more than half of Israel’s Jewish population, a mixture of several groups. Yet, somehow all that diversity doesn’t adversely affect their happiness score.

A number of commentators, including Dan Senor and Saul Singer in their book “The Genius of Israel,” have argued that the secret is that Israelis have an abiding commitment to their families and to each other. Part of their evidence is the amazing fact that more than 70% of Jewish Israelis sit down together for Shabbat dinner each week. Grandparents, parents, and children; friends and neighbors. As the authors put it, while Americans may celebrate with family once a year at Thanksgiving, Israelis do it weekly.

While Americans may celebrate with family once a year at Thanksgiving, Israelis do it weekly. Maybe more of us should try that here.  

Maybe more of us should try that here.  

We better try something. Economists estimate that over 80% of baby boomers ended up richer than their parents, a percentage that is similar to the experience of earlier generations. However, research from Harvard economist Raj Chetty suggests that only half of the members of more recent cohorts have achieved the same. Think about that for a minute: What is left of the American Dream when one out of two of our children and grandchildren end up with a lower material standard of living than we have had? If Easterlin is correct and they feel poor relative to us, that certainly doesn’t bode well for how they will feel about their lives. 

Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden are way too cold and dark in the winter, so forget about moving there to find happiness.  Instead, perhaps we can discover that nirvana is as close as the Shabbat dinner table.

Morton Schapiro is the former president of Williams College and Northwestern University.  His most recent book (with Gary Saul Morson) is “Minds Wide Shut:  How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us.”

A couple of weeks ago, nearly 300 Jewish “influencers” descended upon New York City. They weren’t here to stop the violent riots, remove Islamist propaganda from our schools, or even to get the media to stop lying about Israel. No, they were here to celebrate themselves, a skill they excel at.

From the photos, it looked like every parent of a teen girl’s worst nightmare: heavily plasticized faces, vapid expressions, nonstop self-idolatry: Selfies, selfies, selfies! Many NYC parents have spent weeks in the ER, managing self-cutting and other suicide attempts. Indeed, the levels of suicide and depression among teen girls continue to spiral: One-third of teen girls in the U.S. have seriously considered attempting suicide. Hospitalization rates for self-harm have increased by 140% since 2010.

Rates of suicide and depression were steady until roughly 2010, when Instagram launched, and then the rates began to spiral. It doesn’t take an NIH doctor to explain why. Teen girls compare themselves 24/7 to cartoonishly filtered, overly Botoxed photos and videos on Instagram. Many of these young women call themselves “influencers.”

My 15-year-old son has another name for them: “Plastics.” He and his friends find this cohort of females not just unattractive but dull. They’ve watched their female friends become addicted to the hourly comparisons, with the mental health issues that follow.

All of which begs the question: Why would the Jewish nonprofit world think celebrating this is a good idea?

To be fair, not all of the 300 were vapid plastics. Some are actually writers, musicians, athletes, dancers and comedians. Some of them make brilliant videos. Why they would demean themselves with the word influencer I don’t know, but the truth is the weekend “summit,” called “Voices for Truth: Influencers United Against Antisemitism,” could have been easily focused on educated young Jews, and the impact would have been profound.

But intelligence is no longer trending in the Jewish Diaspora, it seems.

At the conference, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said that social media has allowed antisemitism to spread to unprecedented levels. That’s true, combined with activist education and activist journalism. If we could clone Torres, we’d have a fighting chance to confront this spiraling. But most “influencers” are not as educated as Torres, and even if they were, this war can’t be fought on social media alone.

Many “influencers” buy their followers and likes. Most followers of plastics are other plastics. So even if they managed to learn a few things — history, political analysis, geography — over the weekend, the effect would be limited. Many of the plastics say the pro-jihad side couldn’t find Israel on a map, which is no doubt true. But could they?

When I asked Rova Media co-founder Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm why they don’t use plastics, he responded without a pause: “Not at the expense of our daughters. Not at the expense of life.” OpenDor Media also doesn’t use plastics and has produced groundbreaking videos.

Ironically, plasticizing, either through an excessive use of Botox or iPhone filters, is another form of over-assimilation — of self-erasure. Many of these women lambaste leftist Jews for remaining silent. But removing one’s Judean features — flattening precisely what makes us distinctive — is just as bad. Which is why you will rarely find Israeli women over-filtering their photos. They seem to intuitively understand that real beauty stems from the soul.

Many of these women lambaste leftist Jews for remaining silent. But removing one’s Judean features — flattening precisely what makes us distinctive — is just as bad. 

Using our brains

The question remains: Why is the Jewish nonprofit world so afraid of promoting our most prized (and envied) body part: our minds? Where is our Douglas Murray?

Islamist propaganda is now in our K-12 classrooms; the Muslim Brotherhood has multidecade plans; our cities allow daily violence against Jews. And yet we continue to focus on the least educated, who have enabled an epidemic of teen suicide.

There should be summits for writers, analysts, thinkers, lawyers, and policy makers. Since it was an activism of lies that helped cause the problem, we need to stop thinking that counteractivism is the answer. We don’t need propaganda; we have the truth — facts, history — on our side. What we need to do is return to a truth-based civil society, and I’m sorry to be blunt, but those who spend half of their days filtering their selfies are not the ones who are going to bring back a truth-based society.

There should be summits for writers, analysts, thinkers, lawyers, and policy makers. Since it was an activism of lies that helped cause the problem, we need to stop thinking that counteractivism is the answer. We don’t need propaganda; we have the truth — facts, history — on our side. 

I’ve spent the last decade trying to figure out why the Jewish nonprofit world funds so many unsuccessful ideas. I still don’t understand. But this latest one is not only not helpful, it promotes an epidemic of teen depression and the larger regression of women. 

And so, as a writer, editor, thinker I offer up here 12 summit ideas. The good news: Now that people like Bill Ackman and Marc Rowan are involved in the fight against antisemitism, we no longer have to wait for the nonprofit world to fix anything.

• Activist education. This is an essential starting point, but it’s also going to be the most difficult. The rot has deeply infested both educators and administrators. Heterodox Academy’s Jonathan Haidt, Rabbi David Wolpe, and Professor Steven Pinker could bring together everyone who has thought deeply about how to solve this multi-layered problem — and begin to solve it. 

• Activist journalism. This is an easier fix. Newsrooms on both the right and the left need to return to objective reporting. Most reporters today have no idea what that means. The Journal’s David Suissa and Alana Newhouse of Tablet could well lead this summit and create an action plan.

• Selective enforcement of law. On July Fourth, just days after the summit, jihadists burned the American flag in Washington Square Park and chanted “Death to America!” The NYPD did nothing. Outside of City Hall in Philadelphia, they set dozens of flags on fire. Some were arrested. Torres, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), and former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) could lead a summit that focuses on what needs to be done so that Jews do indeed get equal protection under our laws: selective enforcement needs to end.

• Partisan extremism. How to return to the essential principles of both classical liberalism and classical conservatism? How to reinvigorate the moderates, the center? Thane Rosenbaum could lead this summit.

• Religious extremism. The ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt along with Canary Mission could focus on the biggest, least discussed problem: Islamism. Is hate and violence against Jews actively discussed in the mosques in the U.S.? Are there terrorism-enabling groups that are not on the U.S.-designated terrorist lists?

• Gen Z. Gen Z is more than ready to take the reins from millennials, who they correctly believe messed so much of this up. Teach them how to respond effectively, deal with activist teachers, argue proficiently, write op-eds, and deliver powerful speeches. Since Leon Wieseltier did this for so many young writers at The (real) New Republic, I can easily see him leading this summit.

• Legal response. The Lawfare Project’s Brooke Goldstein could bring together the top law firms in the country to discuss making use of every available legal response.

• Financial response. Ackman and Rowan could bring together major philanthropists to create a set of guidelines: When to pull funding; what to fund; etc.

• Documentary films. A documentary based on lies, “Israelism,” is now on Netflix. Videos can be great, but documentaries still have the imprimatur of “truth.” Documentary filmmakers like Gloria Greenfield of Doc Emet Productions and OpenDor Media could bring together film students to discuss ideas, implementation, and financing.

• Principles and values this country was founded upon. This shouldn’t need to be said but here we are: You can’t tell the morally depraved that they’re not following the values of this country if you intersperse that message with full or half-naked selfies. My Intellectual History professor from University of Pennsylvania and the founder of FIRE, Dr. Alan Kors, could bring together a group of scholars to teach what is no longer being taught.

• Judean ethnicity. The nonprofit world should have embraced the fact that Judaism is not just a religion but an ethnicity decades ago. The benefits would have been profound, not the least of which Jews would be able to proudly show our direct DNA connection to the land of Israel. Micha Danzig and his son, Yirmiyahu Danzig, have written extensively on the subject. They could easily lead a summit that finally teaches Jews the truth.

• Self-idolatry. Finally, how the self-idolatry of “influencers” and self-branding in general is destroying our souls. Olga Meshoe Washington of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel could easily lead this. Is there an inverse relationship between self-promotion and true brilliance? Absolutely. There always has been. But in the past relentless self-promoters were mocked, relentlessly. Today self-promoters are worshipped, literally. Despite their lack of originality or creativity. And because of this, women are now hired for how well they can deep-fake their photos on social media. 

Conferences aren’t the only way to re-inspire Judean minds, of course. Publications like Tablet, Sapir, Mosaic, and my own White Rose Magazine have tried to analyze today’s issues in a deep, nuanced way, as do many podcasts. Organizing a speaker series at your synagogue or community center is a great way to reinvigorate intellectual debate. Take a group to Israel to learn from every original source. And of course, there’s nothing like reading the works of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to begin to revalue wisdom. 

And then of course there’s the world of creativity: Art, dance, theatre, poetry, music. Just like spirituality and reconnecting with our ancestral history, creativity ignites our souls and opens our minds to new ideas; creates the necessary space in our heads to process and reject bad ideas; allows us the essential pause to be able to reflect upon and fully understand what’s happening around us.

Creativity is often born from struggle. The Jewish struggle is arguably the oldest and perhaps the most difficult of any people; it has made our collective character stronger and our own creativity richer. It’s time to retap into that wellspring of ingenuity.

Effective social media

None of this is to say that the people who have used social media to make a real difference shouldn’t continue. Sites like Honest Reporting, StopAntisemitism, the Jew Hate Database, Safe Campus, and Jews in School are all doing invaluable work. Analysts like Natasha Hausdorff, Hen Mazzig, Emily Schrader, Eylon Levy, and Dumisani Washington are essential to deepen the discourse. Filmmakers/videographers like Zach Sage Fox and Joshua Buchalter are doing brilliantly creative work, as are comedians like Yechiel Jacobs and musicians like David Draiman, Westside Gravy, and Kosha Dillz. 

And as I always need to point out: This is in no way a missive against sexy women. My first book, “The Lipstick Proviso: Women, Sex & Power in the Real World” (Doubleday, 1997), was about how women don’t need to lose their femininity or sexuality to be equal to men. The problem today is precisely the opposite: Even very smart women feel like they have to post half-naked selfies every few days. Why? To feed male social media fetishes. Women have been reduced, again, to their (often fake) body parts.

In terms of fighting the hate and lies, the problem is also people who are using Israel and antisemitism to either increase their “following” or begin one. I’m sorry, that’s simply inexcusable. If someone has genuinely begun Israeli activism for nonnarcissistic reasons, but doesn’t have much expertise on the subject, here’s what I would suggest: Post the information itself. Whether in the form of a video of a protest or a news clip, social media does have the ability to share news quickly. We need more people to do this.

In terms of fighting the hate and lies, the problem is also people who are using Israel and antisemitism to either increase their “following” or begin one. I’m sorry, that’s simply inexcusable. 

But please: don’t post a photo or a video of yourself, especially a plasticized one, talking to your followers. Please understand that when someone who doesn’t have years of in-depth knowledge does this, you are taking the oxygen away from those who do. And please, especially if you’re trying to reach Gen Z, don’t call yourself an “influencer.” After years of having to endure every type of lie from their millennial “teachers,” they will immediately think you’re a fraud. And they would be right.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.

Author’s Note: The following is meant to demonstrate cause and effect, and how the reprehensible actions of a savage terrorist group can unleash irreversible havoc and chaos, similar to a domino effect, if the dominos were steel and concrete buildings in which terrorists embedded themselves with civilians. 

Any resemblance to the classic 1975 children’s picture book, “Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo,” by Dr. Seuss (who used the pen name, “Rosetta Stone”), in which an adorable bug sneezes, creating a butterfly effect of events that quickly devolves into hysterical bedlam, is purely noncoincidental. Scout’s Honor. 

You may not believe it, but here’s how it happened. One fine fall morning, a terrorist group went after “those Jews” and attacked Israel. 

Because of that attack, 1,200 Israelis were murdered and hundreds were taken hostage. 

Because they were murdered, raped or kidnapped, Israel responded by vowing to annihilate the terrorist group, Hamas, and its collaborators. 

Because Israel decided to defend itself, thousands of people gathered in London to protest Israel. 

Because thousands of people immediately protested Israel, some protesters felt emboldened to openly support Hamas and proudly display signs that read, “Glory to the freedom fighters.”

Because so many protesters in London were unabashedly pro-Hamas, American antisemites who had previously declared they were merely “anti-Zionists” perked up their heads and began to take notice, particularly at universities. 

Because many antisemitic American students felt vindicated by openly pro-Hamas protesters in Europe and Canada, regime leaders in Iran began to smile. 

Because the Ayatollah smiled, Israel uselessly reiterated (again) that this war was a war not merely against Hamas, but against violent fanatics with direct ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Because Israeli messages tend to be useless in light of the sheer volume of lies, propaganda and brainwashing against the Jewish state, the media reverted to its old habit of dismissing Israel’s facts and arguments. 

Because the media’s knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss, overlook or even falsify Israel’s claims, overnight, the world believed that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza and killed over 500 civilians.

Because the world believed the lie about the hospital, the Palestinian Health Ministry (Hamas) was again validated in its long-held belief that it could lie about anything related to Israel and the media would eat up and distribute those lies. 

Because the media continued to distribute the terror group’s lies, tens of millions of people worldwide turned against Israel. 

Because tens of millions of people turned against Israel, fanatical college students in the West understood that there has never been a better time to recruit their uninformed peers into an unprecedented campaign of blind hatred against the Jewish state. 

Because so many uninformed young Americans were quickly recruited to side against Israel, some young American Jews also decided they would be the face and voice of the anti-Israel movement. 

Because some young American Jews became the useful faces and voices of a brilliant propaganda campaign against Israel, the word “Zionism” increasingly became a dirty word to be used at one’s peril. 

Because Zionism became such a dirty word, an unprecedented campaign to publicly identify and alienate Zionists emerged in sectors ranging from academia and the arts to writing and publishing. 

Because Zionists were now “outed” as if they were subhuman, true Jewish liberals and defenders of freedom begged others to see that such tactics were anathema to liberty, democracy and Western values, and terrifyingly similar to the kind of prejudiced censorship found in the Middle East and Communist states and, most of all, in Iran. 

Because the Ayatollah in Iran understood that Iran’s 45-year campaign to render Zionism a dirty word was being embraced by everyone from purple-haired California college students to white-collar publishers in the U.K., he smiled. And Iran felt free to fire over 300 missiles and rockets against Israel.

Because Iran dared to fire over 300 missiles and rockets at Israel, and because most of them were miraculously shot down by Israel and a few surprising allies, many Jews doubled down on their Jewish pride and identity, and felt an even bigger stake in the future of Israel. 

Because Jews doubled down on Judaism and Zionism, antisemites worldwide responded with even more hate and violence because to an antisemite, a spirited Jew who insists on living is intolerable. 

Because Jews doubled down on Judaism and Zionism, antisemites worldwide responded with even more hate and violence because to an antisemite, a spirited Jew who insists on living is intolerable. 

Because a spirited Jew is intolerable to antisemites, Hamas refused to surrender, negotiate or release Israeli hostages, while continuing to embed itself in civilian areas, resulting in more Palestinian casualties which, for Hamas, was a highly desirable outcome because it knows the world will always blame Israel for any Palestinian death. 

Because the world always blames Israel for Palestinian suffering and can never hold Palestinians accountable for anything, a mini-army of bored college students launched a violent takeover of universities that targeted … yes, Jewish students!

Because these bored and hysterical antisemites poisoned an entire year of campus life, Jewish students and faculty doubled down on Zionism and Jewish pride, resulting in what may be described as a renaissance of Jewish pride and joy in America.

Because Jewish pride and joy have resurfaced worldwide, young IDF soldiers were reenergized in their efforts to destroy Hamas and free the hostages, resulting in a miraculous mission that brought home four captive Israelis. 

Because one of those freed captives, Noa Argamani, was photographed enjoying a bottle of Coca-Cola with her father, there was an immediate campaign to boycott Coke. 

Because antisemites realized that even Coke was not off-limits, they immediately rushed to shut down the absolutely harmless and somber Nova Music Festival Massacre Exhibit in New York. 

Because shouting pro-Hamas slogans outside the Nova exhibit seemed to have finally crossed a line, even several uber-progressive, anti-Israel House representatives who condemned the Nova protesters as being antisemitic are now the target of protesters, and are being accused of being “AIPAC puppets,” as antisemitic leftists now seem to be turning on each other. 

Because American representatives who previously accused Israel of genocide are now the target of hate and protests from within their own Leftist movements for having called out antisemitism, the Ayatollah is, at the moment, surprised and confused. Iran and the Palestinians were really counting on American progressives in power to stand unified against the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. 

So now the Jews are energized, the bored antisemites are getting a discount on tents for the next semester, and the Ayatollahs can’t figure out these American leftists. 

And all that happened. Believe me. It’s true.

Because … just because … a terrorist group went after “Those Jews!”

Tabby Refael is an award-winning writer, speaker and weekly columnist for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Follow her on X and Instagram @TabbyRefael.